Spring Cleaning
by Jorja-Fan23
Summary: GSR Sara does some spring cleaning, and a trip down memory lane results. CHAPTER 2!
1. Default Chapter

Many thanks to my beta, ShipperGirl. I couldn't do it without you! **Chapter One**

Sara lugged the last cardboard box up the stairs to her second floor apartment and set it in the kitchen. She took a moment to catch her breath as she surveyed her apartment. Just about every inch of open floor, table, counter, or chair was covered in boxes bursting at the seams with stuff. Her living room and dining room were both packed full.

Four years ago when Sara first moved to Vegas, it was expected to be temporary. She'd brought a minimal amount of possessions with her to avoid having to deal with the extra packing. Instead, by renting a furnished apartment, everything was set. Then, when the Vegas arrangement became more permanent, she had a friend pack up all of her things and send them to her. Sara had always meant to unpack properly, but one thing led to another, work got busy, and she never really got around to unpacking. So, everything just sat in storage gathering dust.

Her current household ambition had little to do with wanting her home to look like a home. Even without the boxes everywhere her apartment had the feel of someone who was moving out soon. Her real motivation was to not have to pay the extra forty-five dollars a month for the storage space to keep it all.

Her goal was to spend her entire day off emptying out all of the boxes, sorting out what she really wanted to keep, and what she could donate to charity. She figured that it wouldn't take more than one day to finish her task. After all, if she'd survived for the last four years without the junk packed up in the boxes spread out in front of her, she could probably do just fine without it forever.

Grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge she plopped down on an empty square of carpet and dug into the nearest box. Ripping open the lid she smiled to herself. Seeing a pair of pink and black-checkered leggings she let out a chuckle.

They'd belonged to her roommate her first semester in college. Jessi was a junior, still living in the dorms only because her financial aid required it. She thought she was the epitome of cool, but truthfully she was always about five years behind in the latest styles. Not that it really affected her at all; Jessi had one of those personalities that just drew people to her, like metal shavings to the magnet in her old magna-doodle toy. Like a pack of hungry children to a plate of fresh baked cookies…

"Like bees to honey!" exclaimed Jessi, slamming the door behind her in her excitement.

Looking up from the book she was reading, Sara gave her roommate a once over. Jessi was quite a sight. Standing just shy of six feet tall with dyed, flame red hair, she had a tendency to wear clothes that drew stares from everyone around her, and she reveled in the attention. She was the center of her own universe, but somehow, she never came off as conceded or full of herself. Jessi was just happy and outgoing and confident in who she was. She was everything Sara wanted to be, minus the wardrobe. Sara was quite the opposite. Having spent the last eighteen years of her life as a bit of an outcast, she was used to blending into the woodwork.

"Put down the book and get dressed, we're going to a party," Jessi said, interrupting her thoughts.

"A party?" Sara echoed, apprehension apparent in her voice.

"Yes. Your extremely intelligent and well connected room mate just arranged a killer party at someone else's house."

"And how, pray tell, did you do that?" Sara asked, smiling.

"I told Steve you would be there and he agreed to host," Jessi replied with a mischievous grin.

The color drained from Sara's cheeks and with her voice barely above a whisper, she asked, "What?"

"Relax," Jessi said, laughing and throwing a heart shaped pillow at her friend. "I did nothing of the sort. But he is hosting the party, and I'm sure he'd be glad to see you."

Sara rolled her eyes, grabbed her bathroom bucket and turned to make her way down the hall for a shower. She knew there was no arguing with Jessi when her mind was made up, and Sara really did enjoy going out to parties with her.

For the first time in her life she felt like she belonged somewhere. She never fit in at home. Not at school, not with her family, not anywhere. But here she did. Here people understood that studying did not make you a freak of nature. That reading books really can be fun. And in turn she learned that it's ok to cut loose sometimes and go to a few parties, make friends, even date a little…

"Earth to Sara," Jessi said, waving her hand in front of Sara's face. "Where are you? Dreaming about Steve?"

Sara playfully swatted her on the shoulder as she made her way to the door. "Oh shush up and let me get ready."

Jessi let out a squeal of delight and flung open the doors to Sara's closet. "Great! I'll pick out your wardrobe!"

"Not a chance, Jessi. I don't want to end up wearing something that might blind him."

Jessi slumped down into a chair with an exaggerated pout. "Fine, be that way. But at least wear something that's not black…ok?"

"Deal," said Sara over her shoulder as she made her way off down the hall.

Sara had a lot of fond memories from that semester of college. It was too bad that Jessi transferred schools that spring to be closer to her boyfriend. She had changed Sara's life, that was for sure. Even after Jessi moved, Sara was still going to parties; she made friends, and dated. She thought of that semester as her awakening.

Sara was still smiling as she lugged the entire box to the donation pile. She didn't think Jessi would mind losing a box of bad 80s clothes, and Sara sure wasn't going to wear them. She'd never been accused of being a fashion plate, but those leggings were just too much. Briefly she wondered how her coworkers would respond if she showed up to work one day wearing them. They would probably have her committed.

Turning back to the living room she stood with hands on her hips. If every box was going to be such a trip down memory lane, this was going to take a whole lot longer than she'd originally thought.

With a sigh, Sara flopped down on the couch and dug into the box of books sitting on the coffee table in front of her. '_Books won't take as long to sort through_,' she thought. Most of them would be kept and filed on the bookshelf to gather dust.

Sara had a real problem getting rid of old books. No matter how outdated the information in them, she still wanted to hang onto them. '_You never know when they might come in handy_,' she thought. This particular box was full of textbooks, mostly from grad school.

Grabbing an armload of books she gingerly made her way over to her bookcases, trying to navigate through the maze of boxes on the floor. Three steps before she would have made it to the shelves, she tripped on a box, spilling the books all over the floor and banging her head on the corner of the bookcase.

"Ouch!" she gasped, as her fingers lightly touched the tender bump. Pulling her fingers away she saw a little red on them…blood. '_Just a scratch_,' she thought, as she reached down to start picking up the books. A folded piece of paper caught her attention and she paused to open it. It was part of a test, an essay test from the forensics seminar that she'd taken in grad school. Grissom had been the teacher. Sara looked at the red writing at the bottom of the last page.

_'Truly wonderful essay. I am particularly interested in your analysis of the second crime scene. It was very thorough and well thought out. Have you considered a career in forensics? I would be happy to recommend you for an internship if you chose to go that route_.'

Sara smiled to herself. That was rare praise from the great Dr. Grissom. Everyone else that she knew in the class had struggled. No matter how detailed you thought you were, how much coverage you had, how many angles you had considered, he would always find one more. Or two more. Or three…

"Bastard," mumbled Jeff, dropping his books on the table with a thud. A few of the other library patrons glared at him disapprovingly as he dropped into his seat.

Sara looked up at her friend and smiled. "You just say that because you got a bad grade on the last test. If you just applied yourself more…"

He held up a hand to stop her. "Not just the last test, the one before that, and the one before that. That Dr. Grissom is one hell of a tough grader."

Sara shrugged and looked back down at the notes in front of her. "He's fair."

"Yeah, if I was the teacher's pet I might think that too."

Sara frowned. "I'm not the teachers pet."

"Sure you are, nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, he's rather good looking. If I wasn't madly in love with Ryan I might try to flirt my way to a better grade," he added with a smile.

"You think he's gay?" she asked.

"Nah, don't worry, I don't get the 'vibe' from him. You still have a chance." She stuck her tongue out at him and pushed a book across the table. "Why don't you study something?"

Going back to her notes she didn't notice Jeff pull a note out of the front cover of one of her books and begin to read it aloud. "I would be available to meet with you outside of class if you would like to improve on your final project, it does have potential…Sara, are you dating the teacher?"

Sara looked up in horror. She hadn't meant him to see that. "Give me that!" she hissed, making a desperate attempt to grab the note from his hand, and failing miserably.

"Sara's dating the teacher…Sara's dating the teacher," Jeff said in an annoyingly singsong voice, waiving the note in the air, just out of her reach.

"Give me that or I will kill you…and I am way better at forensics than you are so don't think I couldn't figure out how to hide a body."

"Now Miss Sidle, no one can hide a body without leaving some evidence, surely you know that?" came a voice from behind her. Slowly Sara turned and saw Dr. Grissom standing there. How long had he been listening? She turned her head again to glare at Jeff, who shrugged and held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. He hadn't seen Grissom approaching either.

"Hi, Dr. Grissom," she said, unconsciously wiping the palms of her hands on her jeans. Somehow they had become inexplicably sweaty…

"I'm glad you're here. I was looking for you," Grissom said, apparently oblivious to her nervousness.

'_He was looking for me?_' she thought.

"I was wondering if you had given any consideration to my offer of collaboration on the next phase of your final project. It would, of course, just be extra credit. You have more than met the expectations for your project."

"Um, yeah," Sara said, at a loss for words. "I'd like that."

Grissom smiled at her. She was very glad she was sitting, or her knees would have given out at that moment. "Wonderful," he said. "How about tomorrow here in the library at, say, seven? I'll reserve one of the study rooms so we won't be interrupted."

"Great," Sara said, swallowing an enormous lump in her throat.

As Grissom walked away, a singsong voice behind Sara started up again, "Sara's dating the teacher…Sara's dating the teacher…Sara's dating the teacher…"

Snapping back to the present, Sara looked around her at the piles of forensics textbooks and old tests graded by the one and only Grissom. She was all but lost in nostalgia, the bump on her head completely forgotten. She might have sat there all day looking through her old school things if the doorbell hadn't interrupted her.


	2. Chapter Two

Many thanks to my beta, ShipperGirl. I couldn't do it without you!

****

**Chapter** **Two**

Sara stood and stretched her arms high above her head, her back giving a satisfying pop in response. Gingerly stepping her way across the apartment towards her front door, she leaned in to look though the peephole.

'_Nick? What's he doing here?'_ she thought as she turned the deadbolt and undid the chain to let her coworker into her apartment.

Nick greeted her with a bright smile. "Hi Sara!"

"What are you doing here?"

His smile faltered slightly. "Nice to see you too," he said, a little less brightly.

"Sorry, Nick," said Sara, flashing him a gap-toothed smile. "I'm just not used to people popping by my apartment on my day off. At ten in the morning no less. Shouldn't you be sleeping? You have to work tonight."

"Yeah, I'm going home soon. I just wanted to stop by and see if you have the file from the cold case you were looking over last week. I got a hit on some DNA from my case that matches that one, and I want to look it over."

"Oh, sure," said Sara, stepping back to let Nick into the apartment. "I'll go grab it."

Nick stood in the doorway and surveyed the apartment while Sara searched in the next room for the file. '_What was with all the boxes_?' he thought.

Sara hopped over a few piles and handed Nick the file. "Here you are."

"Sara, is there something you want to tell me?"

She looked at Nick, completely puzzled. "What do you mean?"

He gestured to the piles of boxes littering her apartment. "Are you moving out?"

"No! I'm just sorting through a bunch of old boxes and giving a bunch of stuff to charity and tossing out a bunch of other stuff that I don't need anymore." Nick still looked doubtful. Sara put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. "Nicky, don't worry. I promise I'm not just going to up and move away without telling you."

"Ok Sara, as long as you promise," he said as he made his way out of the apartment. "I'll see you later."

"Later, Nick," she said, shutting and locking the door behind him. Nick was such a nice guy. He sort of reminded her of her friend Jeff from college, except for obvious differences in sexual orientation. She briefly pictured Nick dancing around the lab waiving a piece of paper in front of her face and singing, "Sara's dating the boss…Sara's dating the boss…" Shaking her head she moved toward another box. Time to get back to work.

This box held mementos from her childhood. Old school papers, all with big red letter A's on the top, and some proposals she had written as a child trying to convince her parents to expand the B&B that they ran into a chain. Sara smiled at the thought. She was such an odd child. Raised by former hippies, with a future hippy as an older brother, she was the star student, the inquisitive scientist, and the thinker.

Reaching deeper into the box she pulled out an old, tattered photo album. When she was a kid she'd found it in the attic at her parent's house. She wasn't sure if her Mom would be mad if she knew that Sara had it, so she always kept it hidden.

Flipping open the cover she was greeted by faded pictures of the past. All of the pictures in this album were from before she was born. There were pictures of her parents surrounded by clumps of friends, all lounging in a park or on someone's lawn. A picture of her Mom in a tie-dyed sundress and rose-colored glasses flashing a peace sign. The last few pages even had her big brother dressed in tiny hippy clothes when he was little. About half way though the book the pictures ended, when her brother was around nine.

That was when her parents had ceased to be hippies. Life changed then. Sara really never experienced the change, as it happened before she was born. Her brother remembered the hippy lifestyle. Despite the best efforts of her parents, he was always a free spirit, a bit of a hippy.

As she ran her fingers over the pictures she wondered if she would have been a very different person if she'd lived with her parents and all of their friends in the time of _free love._ But the family she grew up with was much different…

"Hey Mooooom," Sara sang, skipping through the house looking for her mother. In one hand she held a small pile of her favorite books, in the other, she held a plastic baggie.

"What do you need now, Sara?" her mother asked, sighing. Sometimes the exuberant four-year old was such a drain. She and her husband had taught Sara to read at the age of three simply for self-preservation. That way they didn't have to spend the entire day being followed around, listening to her begging in her squeaky voice for them to read her just one more story.

Sara held up a baggie and handed it to her mother. "Found a bag of dirt under Bill's bed," she said, referring to her brother, ten years her senior. "He is so weird," she added in an exaggerated dramatic voice, as small children are prone to do.

Grabbing the bag from her daughter's hand, the color drained from her face, replaced by fiery anger. "Bill! Get down here now!!!" she screamed. Sara jumped, startled by her mother's sudden anger.

"What did I do?" she asked tentatively, clutching her books to her chest.

"Go to your room," was the only reply.

With tear filled eyes Sara crouched at the top of the stairs, listening to her mother berate her brother, who sat slumped on the couch.

"Mom, its just a little pot," he whined. "What's the big deal?"

"The big deal? The big deal? I'll tell you what the big deal is. You know how your father and I feel about drugs. That is not a road that I am about to let my only son go down. I will not let you turn yourself into a common criminal."

"You're such a hypocrite, its not like you've never done any drugs. I do have memories before the age of ten you know," he said, glaring at his mother, matching her anger with his own.

"And you know what came of it. There is no more discussion on this topic. You are grounded for a year, go to your room," she said with a dismissive wave, to exhausted to argue any more.

Stomping up the stairs Bill shoved past Sara on the way to his room. "This is all your fault you know."

_Eight years later…_

Sara flew in the front door, dropping her books on the kitchen table. "Bill, what are you doing here?" she asked, walking over to give her older brother a hug.

"What, I can't come to see my baby sister on her twelfth birthday?"

Sara grinned. "Whatever. You're just here because Nancy next door is home from college for the weekend."

Her brother shrugged. "Can I help it if I have an irresistible urge to corrupt the college bound?" He had never been the four-year-college type. After high school he had gone to a trade school and became a chef. He worked for a catering company that he hoped to own one day.

"Well, you get to be the first one in my experiment," Sara said, pulling a couple plastic trays and bottles of unknown liquid out of her backpack.

Bill gaped at Sara with an expression of mock-fear. "Promise not to kill me?" he asked, gulping.

"Promise," said Sara. "Now give me your hand." Taking his hand she pricked his finger with a sterile needle and collected a few drops of blood in each little notch in one of the plastic trays.

"Are you going to tell me what this experiment is?" he asked as he watched Sara drip drops of liquid from each of her mysterious bottles onto his blood drops.

"Nope, not till I get Mom and Dad, too," she said, closing her kit and hauling her bag and books upstairs.

Later that night, after the diner dishes were done, Sara sat in her room with four plastic trays laid out in front of her. Each was labeled with a name: Mom, Dad, Bill, and Sara. '_This can't be right,'_ she thought to herself. '_There has to be something wrong. I must have done it wrong._' Wiping her eyes she grabbed a needle and was about to prick her finger for the fourth time when Bill stuck his head in her door.

Seeing the tears in her eyes, he stepped in quickly, shutting the door behind him. "Sara, baby, what's wrong?"

Shrugging his hand off her shoulder she moved to sit up on the bed. "Nothing."

Sitting beside her, Bill wouldn't back down. "That's a load of bull. I know when something is wrong with my baby sister. Call it brotherly instinct."

"What if I told you that I knew you weren't my brother?" she said softly, not looking up from her lap. Beside her, her brother stiffened.

"What do you mean?"

Sara gestured to the trays on the floor. "My experiment has to do with blood types. The chemicals that I was putting on each of the samples that I got from you, Mom, Dad, and myself turn different colors depending on what type of blood they have, either A, B, O or AB. Mom came up A, Dad came up O, you came up O, and I came up AB."

"So? We are all different, big deal."

Looking up at Bill with a tear-streaked face, Sara spoke with surprising calm. "It is physically impossible for people with the blood types A and O to produce a child with AB blood. My biological parents have to be A, B or AB. There is no way that Dad is my father."

Bill sighed and put his arm around Sara's shoulder. "I guess you would have figured it out someday. But that's not going to make this any easier." Sitting patiently by his side, Sara waited for her brother to tell her what he had to say.

"I'm actually your half brother. We have the same Mom, but different biological fathers. Dad is your Dad, he is the one that raised you…but he isn't your biological father.

When I was little, Mom and Dad and I lived in a house with a bunch of their friends. They were hippies really, free love all around. I was with Grandma and Grandpa for the weekend, so I wasn't there when it happened, but this is what I know. There was a big knockdown drag-out party at the house. There were a lot of drugs floating around, and at some point Dad lost track of Mom. The next morning they found her in the field out back of the house, and she had been raped and beaten. She was in the hospital for a couple weeks, I wasn't aloud to visit her because the doctors thought it would be too damaging for me to see her like that.

To make a long story short, nine months later…you were born. We weren't positive if Dad was your father or if the rapist was. As you got older…it just became more obvious that Dad wasn't your father. We are all blond haired and blue eyed, you have brown hair and eyes. All three of us are a bit on the short side, and here you are growing like a weed. And I think you came out of the womb with more brains than any of the three of us."

"Do they know who it was? The guy?"

Bill nodded. "He was a serial rapist. He had been cycling around the area for years. When you were about a year old they caught him in the act of raping another woman. He confessed to all sorts of crimes, Mom's rape being one of them."

Sara shut the photo album and placed it gingerly back in the bottom of the box. She couldn't dispose of that. Something in her needed to hold on to it.

It was the same urge that kept her working so hard to put criminals behind bars. Especially in rape cases. In every case she saw her mother, once a happy and carefree young woman, turned by a crime into something bitter and scared.

Sara took the brunt of it growing up. Just merely by existing she was a daily reminder to her mother of what she had gone through. She couldn't undo that, but she could do everything in her power to stop the same horror from taking over another life, another family.

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand she reached and pulled a different box to her side. She needed some happier memories to look through. Some things were just too painful to revisit.


	3. Chapter Three

Many thanks to my beta, ShipperGirl. I couldn't do it without you! **** **Chapter 3**

Sara reached into the next box and pulled out a worn green folder. Flipping it open she found a small stack of old applications for jobs related to her physics degree. She had applications to several prestigious research facilities, one or two for doctoral programs, and even one for a teaching position at a small private college in New York. So many different paths she could have taken. She clearly remembered the day that her path was chosen.

Sara stumbled into her apartment shedding her mittens, hat and scarf as she made her way inside from the blistering Boston winter. The shrill ring of her phone echoed loudly in the otherwise quiet apartment, but she was much too concerned with warming herself up to be bothered with answering the phone. Slipping into warm pajama pants and fuzzy frog slippers, she heard the answering machine click on.

"Hi, you've reached Sara Sidle. I'm not here to take your call right now. Please leave a message and I'll call you back later. Thanks! Bye."

"Sara! It's Jeff, are you there? Babe, I need your help. I'm trying to finish my applications for a research internship and I am in desperate need of your assistance. If anyone can make me look good on these things, it's you. I wouldn't trust my future to anyone else. Plus, if I know you, you've probably had all of your applications in for at least a month. Please, please, PLEASE call me back as soon as you get this message. Maybe I'll just pop by later. Anyway, give me a call."

Sara rolled her eyes and smiled as she made her way into the kitchen. It was so like Jeff to leave everything to the last minute.

These research internship applications were no small task. Each one had essays and your resume, transcripts and letters of recommendation. They were a lot to put together. And to be considered for any of the positions, everything had to be postmarked by midnight tomorrow.

Turning on the coffee pot Sara sighed and cast a wayward glance at the green folder sitting open on the coffee table. Spilling out of it were seven completed applications, complete with essays, letters of recommendation, and addressed envelopes.

Three were for positions in research labs, two were for doctoral programs to continue her education and get her PhD and one was for a teaching position at a small private college. The last application was different. The last application, currently sitting on the top of the pile, was for an entry-level position in the San Francisco coroner's office.

It paid less than the others, involved long hours at odd times of the day and night, and was something completely outside of where she always pictured herself working. Still, something in her wanted to go for it.

Sara had only recently begun taking forensics classes. But even after two short semesters she knew that forensics grabbed her in a way that no other subject ever had. She had always been a dedicated student, but when she was studying forensics she went beyond dedicated to something close to obsession. But was it really meant to be her career? Something in her still doubted her instinct. Hence the reason that she filled out all of the other applications.

The phone rang again, interrupting her thoughts. Shaking herself back to the present Sara crossed the room and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Sara! It's Jeff; I just left you a message."

"Yeah, I know, I was just getting home and I heard you on the machine. I was just changing clothes and starting some coffee before I called you back."

"Good, make that a big pot of coffee, and I have the doughnuts. I'm at the corner bakery right now; I'll be there in five minutes."

Before she could respond, the line went dead. Just like Jeff to invite himself over. At least he was bringing doughnuts.

Half an hour later Sara was sitting on her couch sipping out of a large coffee mug and staring blankly into space when she was interrupted by a knock on her door. She padded across the apartment and opened the door, revealing a very cold Jeff holding a box of doughnuts.

"Sorry that took so long, I got stuck behind a car accident," Jeff said, pushing past Sara and into the apartment. As she closed and locked the door behind him he grabbed the steaming mug from her hands. "And you meet me at the door with coffee and everything," he gushed. Taking a sip he scrunched up his face and added, "What is this?"

Sara grabbed the mug back. "Irish coffee."

"No kidding. How about you make me one with just coffee in it?" He asked as he dropped his bag on the floor and shed his bulky winter jacket.

While Sara was in the kitchen getting the coffee, Jeff made his way to the living room. Seeing the papers spread on the table in the living room, he flipped through the pages and pages of different applications.

"Sara, girl, what's up with all the applications? You have, like, a billion filled out. Are you actually going to send any of them?"

Sara walked back into the room carrying two steaming mugs. Handing one to Jeff she sat down on the couch folding her legs beneath her. With a shrug she took a sip of her coffee. "I haven't decided which ones I want to send in yet."

"Why not just send them all? They're already done, what's the harm?" Jeff asked.

"What if I make the wrong choice?"

Jeff sat down next to Sara and put his hand on her knee. "Sara, you don't actually make the choice until you are accepted. What is this really about?"

Staring into the mug clasped in her hands, her reply was almost inaudible. "What if it's just because I have a crush? What if it's not what I'm supposed to do?"

Jeff sighed. Ever since Sara had taken that first forensics class with him two semesters back she had changed.

When they first met Jeff had the impression that Sara was one of those people that probably had their entire life planned out day by day from the time she was in kindergarten.

She had been flying down the straight and narrow path at breakneck speed when Dr. Grissom turned up and derailed her. His class struck her in a way that Jeff could only pretend to understand. And there was more. Dr. Grissom seemed to take quite a liking to Sara. Not the same way every other professor favored the star student that was Sara Sidle. No, he saw something in her that she didn't even see in herself. Something special, something more.

Even after his class was done Jeff knew that Sara kept in contact with Dr. Grissom. While he had teased her on many occasions about 'dating the professor,' he had no clue the depth of turmoil that was inside Sara when she thought of Grissom.

"You'll never know unless you try it," Jeff said, breaking the silence.

Sara looked up suddenly as if startled. "Easy for you to say, it's not your life."

He shook his head. "No, it's yours. But honestly, if you go for the position in the coroner's office and head of into the wild world of forensic science and you don't like it, and then try something else. With your record I'm sure you can still get one of these other positions a year or two from now if you decide you made a mistake. Besides," he added picking up a random application from the pile. "Which sounds better. San Francisco sun, or cold winters in the middle of nowhere New York?"

Sara smiled, "I've always loved the sun."

Jeff grinned and dropped the application into the already addressed envelope and set it aside. "Now that that's settled. I'll drop it at the post office with mine…as soon as we fill them out."

Sara groaned. "I can't believe you left everything to the last minute like this."

"Yeah, well not everyone can be a teacher's pet like you," he teased.

Sara smiled as she set the folder to the side. If it hadn't been for Jeff she might not have taken the path that she did. Maybe she would have been just as happy working in some research facility, but she doubted it. Despite the ups and downs on the road that was her life, it had been a decent ride.

Reaching deeper in the box she wondered what memory she would pull out next.


End file.
